June 12 (UPI) — A cyberattack has crippled distribution channels for one of the nation’s top organic food distributors, leading to empty shelves at grocery stores nationwide.
Rhode-Island-based United Natural Foods Inc., a major supplier to Whole Foods, became aware of the attack on June 5th, a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission said. UNFI said the breach affected its ability to fulfill customer orders.
“It’s affecting operations in a very, very significant way,” an employee at a Sacramento Whole Foods told NBC News. “Shelves don’t even have products in some places. The shipments we receive are not what we need, or we did need it but it’s too much of one product because UNFI can’t communicate with stores to get proper orders.”
A spokesperson for Whole Foods apologized and said the company is working to restock the shelves as quickly as it can. In a statement, UNFI acknowledged the ransomware attack.
“We have identified unauthorized activity in our systems and have proactively taken some systems offline while we investigate,” UNFI said in the statement. “As soon as we discovered the activity, an investigation was initiated with the help of leading forensics experts and we have notified law enforcement. We are assessing the unauthorized activity and working to restore our systems to safely barring them back online.”
UNFI said it is working closely to keep its customers updated amid the confusion and distribution disruptions.
At a quarterly earnings meeting Tuesday, UNFI CEO Sandy Douglas told investors that it is supplying customers on a “limited basis.”
“We are partnering with customers across the country and across our formats in various short term modes to serve their needs as best we possibly can,” he said. “Any way that we can help them with their needs, we’re doing.”
Douglas said the company is working with the FBI and other authorities to track the source of the breach and why UNFI’s security systems failed.
The UNFI security breach comes amid a series of cyberattacks on retailers in recent weeks that have crippled the operations of several high profile retailers with ransomware.